


The Art of Communication

by littlelamplight



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, its a scene rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 10:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16659763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelamplight/pseuds/littlelamplight
Summary: The conversation in Kara's apartment goes a little differently.In which Astra and Alex actually talk about things. A fix it for ep 1x13





	The Art of Communication

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anonymississippi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymississippi/gifts).



There’s a long silence after Astra has finished her explanation, and Alex can feel herself gaping. ‘You’re insane’.

 

‘Perhaps’. Astra props her hands on her hips, gazing with some interest around the apartment. ’Several decades spent staring into a void will do that to you’.

 

‘Why should I trust you?’ Alex spits, rubbing absently at her neck despite the fact that the hold really was too gentle to actually bruise. ‘Last time I trusted you, people died’.

 

Astra arches an eyebrow. ‘You trusted information obtained via torture, Alexandra. That is hardly my fault’.

 

Alex remembers the way Kara sobbed when Astra screamed, and takes a deep breath. It’s frustrating, but she knows the woman has a point. She takes a deep breath, and mutters, ‘it’s still a risk’.

 

Astra rolls her eyes. ‘I am taking a greater risk than you, coming here’. She flicks a non-existent spec of dust off her uniform, and raises her eyebrows. ‘So, will you take my advice?’

 

Anger flares up in her chest. ‘Do you even _care_?’

 

Astra gives her a look that isn’t so much angry as it is exasperated. ‘Must I answer that? Of course I do. Why else would I be here?’

 

‘Then stop acting so flippant’, Alex snaps. She’s aware that she’s getting a little hysterical, that all her fear and frustration is spilling over, but she can’t seem to stop it.

 

Astra scoffs. ‘I am simply in control of myself, so I can think clearly. You might take it as an example’.

 

She’s right, of course, which just makes it worse. ‘This is my sister we’re talking about’, Alex snarls, her hands shaking as she tries, vainly, to get herself under control, ‘you have _no_ idea what -’

 

Astra looks at her, and the words die in her throat. For the first time, Alex genuinely thinks that the woman might kill her. In all their interactions, Astra has always looked rather bored, or amused, or interested. She’s looked at her a little like a cat regarding pinned prey. Despite the fact that they’ve been on opposite sides, the woman has rarely looked like she would actually kill her.

 

It’s remarkably frightening.

 

It’s also surprisingly sobering.

 

Alex swallows tightly, and says, ‘I -’

 

‘Is your sister alive?’

 

Alex blinks. ‘Yes’.

 

‘Then do not presume to tell me what I do or do not know about losing a sister’, Astra says, and her lip curls back like she’s snarling. ‘When it comes to this, it is _you_ who know nothing’.

 

Alex takes a deep breath, trying to cling to her anger and her desperation, to those emotions that have fuelled her since she found Kara with that _thing_ on her, but they feel oddly out of grasp. Instead, she hears herself saying, ‘I’m sorry, okay? I forgot’.

 

‘You _forgot_ that your sister’s mother was _my_ sister?’ Astra spits, and her eyes are so bright Alex wonders if she’s about to lose control. ‘And here I thought your intelligence was what made you brave. Maybe your bravery came from being too _idiotic_ to know better’. She hisses a series of syllables that is harsh and sharp and sounds remarkably like several choice kryptonian curses Kara taught her when they were younger. ‘Maybe I should find someone else to do this - you, it seems, are far too stupid’.

 

‘Hey’, Alex says sharply, ‘I’m not stupid’.

 

Astra’s eyes flare. ‘No? So you’re just insensitive?’

 

‘Look’, Alex pinches her nose, wondering why she’s feeling so apologetic when she’s literally on an opposite side of a war from Astra, ‘I forgot because it doesn’t seem the same, okay?’

 

Astra’s eyes narrow. ‘How so?’

 

‘Isn’t it obvious? You hate Alura’.

 

Astra blinks. She opens her mouth, shuts it, and says, ‘excuse me?’

 

She sounds… less like she’s about to kill her, at least, but the change is oddly unnerving. She can’t read it. ‘You hate her’, she repeats slowly, staring at Astra’s face, ‘you told Kara about how she trapped you because you hate her, and you wanted Kara to hate her too, so that she would consider joining you’.

 

Astra’s brow furrows. She stares at Alex for a long, inscrutable moment, and abruptly turns her back. She folds her arms over her chest, and her back is ramrod straight, the impressive muscles in her shoulders stiff and tight. Alex waits. She’s not sure what else she’s suppose to do. She could _technically_ attempt to subdue the woman, but she finds that she doesn’t actually want to.

 

‘Alura’, Astra says suddenly, and her voice sounds odd as it shapes her sister’s name, ‘was, aside from Kara, the only person I have ever loved. If you were hoping to maintain the idea that I am simply a cruel, malicious person who wishes to destroy you and Kara, I’m afraid your mistaken’.

 

Alex opens her mouth, a dozen questions flying through her head. She wants to ask about Astra’s parents, her friends, her husband, except all that comes out is, ‘I don’t think that’.

 

Astra glances over her shoulder at her, her face hard and sharp, her eyes glinting. ‘What?’

 

‘I don’t think you’re cruel, or malicious, or that you want to destroy us. I never have’.

 

Astra turns to face her slowly. Her previous anger seems to be momentarily drowned out by confusion, and perhaps a little curiosity. ‘Then… what do you think?’

 

There have been times in Alex’s life where she’s been at a crucial, life defining cross roads, and hasn’t known it until she’s looked back upon it later. There have also been times when she’s been oddly aware of it as its happening. Aware that if she took one path, the other would be forever closed to her. That an entire realm of possibilities would shut off, and she’d lose something she might not even know she wanted, at the time.

 

She’d felt like that, when J’onn offered her a position at the DEO.

 

And, looking at Astra now, it feels as if _everything_ hinges on what she says next.

 

Alex takes a long, deep breath, and lets it out slowly. She breathes in, and out, and tries to collect her thoughts. Her thoughts. About Astra. That have been swirling around and around in her head like a collapsing star, twisting in on themselves until it’s been hard to find something coherent among the chaos.

 

Astra watches her. It’s hard to tell what she’s thinking, and trying to work out what she’s thinking while she herself is trying to sort out her own thoughts is giving Alex a headache, and getting her no where.

 

She takes another deep breath, and closes her eyes. She thinks about Astra. Astra, who she heard so many stories about when she was younger, with Kara curled up under the covers with her, tears soaking into her shirt, whispering about stars. Astra, who is fighting her own, beloved niece. Astra, who’s planet died because it’s people were too greedy, too stubborn, who didn’t listen. Who spent over twenty years trapped in Fort Rozz.

 

Her thoughts hit a snag, spiral off, and she sees reports of Fort Rozz and what it was like streaming behind her eyes, it’s occupants, it’s _monsters_ , and remembers that Astra didn’t have her powers there.

 

She squeezes her eyes shut tighter, and sees the look on Astra’s face when General Lane brought out the kryptonite. When the soldiers forced her down. Fear made her look entirely different, made Alex’s chest twist and crack, made her throat tighten.

 

They’d emptied the vials into her. She’d lain on the floor afterwards, like she didn’t want to move. Maybe she couldn’t.

 

She remembers the way her almost predatory smile vanished, the way she twitched, when Alex mistook her for Alura.

 

She remembers the spy beacon she’d kept all these years.

 

When Alex opens her eyes, Astra is still watching her. She seems wary, but also puzzled, as if she doesn’t understand why Alex is taking so long to answer a single question. Alex steps forwards, and Astra tenses. ‘I think’, she says quietly, ‘that you’re traumatised’.

 

Astra blinks. She cocks her head to the side, and looks at Alex like she’s grown a second head. ‘What?’

 

‘You’re traumatised. You lost your planet, spent over twenty years in Fort Rozz -’

 

‘I don’t’, Astra says sharply, ‘need you to tell me what I’ve been through’.

 

‘- lost your sister, your niece, literally everyone you’ve ever known, came here, couldn’t find Kara, and then, on top of all of that, you realised you were on a dying planet’.

 

Astra’s eyes narrow. ‘What are you getting at?’

 

‘Do you know what a coping mechanism is?’

 

Astra arches an eyebrow, and for a moment looks like that woman she met in the warehouse all those weeks ago. ‘It’s something people use to _cope_ ’, she says flatly, ‘like you, with your countless bottles of alcohol’.

 

Ouch. Well, she sort of saw something like that coming.

 

‘Right. Exactly’.

 

‘I am seriously beginning to doubt how I ever thought you could be intelligent’.

 

‘Myriad is your coping mechanism’.

 

‘I - _what?_ ’

 

Shock seems to be keeping outrage, anger, and all those other dangerous emotions that could result in Alex being held by the throat at bay, for now, so Alex presses on. ‘Do you know what PTSD is?’ Astra shakes her head, still staring at her like she’s suddenly stopped being able to understand English. Right, of course a planet that destroyed itself wouldn’t be good with mental health. ‘It’s Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’.

 

‘Thank you’, Astra says, sounding vaguely numb, ‘that makes so much more sense’.

 

Alex rolls her eyes. ‘It’s something commonly experienced by military vets, or just survivors of some sort of traumatic event. What it means, basically, is that the person in question hasn’t recovered from something extremely traumatic that happened to them, and is suffering as a result’. She hesitates, and her voice softens. ‘Do you get flashbacks? About Krypton, and Fort Rozz?’

 

Astra stares at her. It’s impossible to work out what she’s thinking, but slowly, she nods. Alex lets out a slow breath. She takes a deep breath, and says, very slowly, ‘did you ever feel like you wanted to give up? That it was too hard, or too much? Did that… stop, when you decided to save us?’

 

It’s the first time she’s referenced Myriad as a way to _save_ them, and Astra blinks. She opens her mouth, shuts it, and then nods. Alex hasn’t had a one sided conversation like this since Kara had a panic attack and went mute for an hour before she was able to calm her down.

 

She’d been seventeen, then. It’d seemed easier.

 

‘And now you want to save Earth, because you feel like you failed Krypton’. It’s not a question. She steps closer, and Astra steps back. ‘Even though you know, rationally, that it was doomed to die long before you were born’.

 

Astra purses her lips. She looks away, and Alex watches the muscles in her neck tighten. Astra’s brow crinkles, and she says slowly, ’all those things… have a name, here?’

 

‘Yeah, they do’. It feels a little odd to be having this conversation, in more ways than one. Firstly, she’s not a therapist. But there’d been Kara, and the instinct to help her, and she still remembers everything she wrote down and memorised when she was supposed to be sleeping.

 

What Astra really needs is therapy. The problem is that she probably doesn’t know what that is.

 

Well, that’s one problem. The other problem is that she’s currently trying to force the world into servitude using mind control, and then there won’t be anyone around to give her therapy.

 

‘My father was of the Military Guild’, Astra says, and Alex almost jerks in surprise. Astra isn’t looking at her, and she looks almost thoughtful. ‘He returned from a year long war when I was eleven, and he was… different’. Her brow furrows. ‘Closed. Absent. Sometimes I don’t think he saw what was in front of him. He killed himself about a month after we came of age’.

 

Alex opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. Her chest constricts, and she thinks of her own father, and how _lost_ she felt after he went missing. She breathes out slowly, and says, ‘I’m sorry’.

 

Astra’s frown deepens. ‘Would that have been this… PTSD?’

 

Alex steps closer. Astra doesn’t move away. She’s closer enough now that Alex can see the very faint, almost invisible laugh lines around her eyes. She can’t imagine Astra laughing.

 

‘Yeah’, she says, ‘I think it would’ve been’.

 

Astra blinks. She seems to become aware of how close Alex is standing, but she doesn’t step back. Instead, she tilts her head, and says, ‘and how does this relate to Myriad being a… coping mechanism?’

 

‘You landed here twelve years ago, right?’ Astra nods. ‘And you latched onto the fact that Earth was dying, and that you had to save it’. Astra nods again. ‘And in all that time, did you ever talk about what had happened? Did you ever… mourn?’

 

‘I’m a General’, Astra says, ‘and the person my followers looked to. Who would I have talked to?’

 

‘Your husband?’ Her husband, who she didn’t love. And never had, apparently. ‘Friends?’

 

Astra raises her eyebrows. ‘I am their General’, she repeats, ‘I cannot afford to appear weak’.

 

‘Feeling things doesn’t make you weak, Astra’.

 

Astra blinks. Something shutters behind her eyes, but she still doesn’t move. ‘Yes, it does’.

 

‘And yet, you’ve turned to Myriad because you care about this planet. You care about it’s people, too’.

 

The expression on Astra’s face is getting harder to decipher, but somehow more piercing. There’s something behind her eyes that Alex would almost call astonishment, if it didn’t seem so complex.

 

Alex takes a deep breath, and says, ‘you haven’t talked to anyone. You haven’t grieved, you haven’t processed it. You don’t want to’. Astra blinks again. She’ll take that as a yes. ‘Because feeling would make you weak, and you don’t want to be weak. Can’t, whatever. So Myriad has become a coping mechanism’.

 

Astra raises her eyebrows. ‘Interesting’.

 

‘You think I’m wrong’.

 

‘I think…’ Astra trails off. She stares at Alex’s face intently for a long moment, and then says quietly, ‘it could be considered weakness that I am even here’.

 

‘You’re here because you care about Kara’.

 

‘Exactly’. Her mouth twists, an odd grimace that takes Alex a second to identify as something like a smile. ‘And it has placed me in a position of vulnerability’.

 

Alex wonders what Astra looks like when she smiles. Not like this, like the very action pains her. But an actual smile, something amused, or perhaps happy. She wonders if Astra even remembers how to smile.

 

It’s been around thirty years since Krypton died. Alex wonders if that means it’s been thirty odd years since Astra smiled.

 

She remembers, with startling clarity, the way Astra reached out to touch her cheek in the warehouse. How oddly physical she is, for someone who could knock her over by flicking her finger, or blowing out a stream of ice, or using that heat behind her eyes.

 

Alex reaches out to touch Astra’s arm. Astra goes very still, and yet, Alex isn’t exactly surprised when she doesn’t move away. ‘If you could’, she says quietly, watching the way Astra’s eyes flick down to her hand, ‘would you stop loving Kara, if it made you less vulnerable?

 

Astra looks up at her again. Something flickers behind her eyes, and she shakes her head. ‘No. I wouldn’t’.

 

‘If you could have Alura back’, Alex says, her voice softening even as Astra tenses under her hand, ‘would you chose not to, if it meant you didn’t feel?’

 

Astra blinks, and she suddenly looks so terribly sad that Alex feels her throat close over. ‘No’.

 

Something clicks. Alex takes a deep breath, and nods. ‘Okay’.

 

‘Okay?’

 

‘I trust you. I’ll do what you said, to save Kara’.

 

Astra looks a little thrown by the sudden one eighty back to where they started, but she nods. ‘Good’.

 

‘I have one condition’.

 

Astra inhales sharply, and her eyes flash. ‘A _condition?_ If you -’

 

‘You said I need to concentrate. That I need to be completely focused on what I’m doing’. Slowly, Astra nods. ‘I can’t do that if you’re out there doing what you’re doing with Myriad. It’ll be there, at the back of my mind, and it’ll distract me’.

 

Astra purses her lips. ‘You want me to postpone, until Kara’s awake’.

 

‘I want you to come with me’.

 

Astra hisses. ‘And get tortured again? No, thank you’.

 

‘That won’t happen’. When the woman scoffs, Alex squeezes her arm. ‘It won’t. My Director won’t let it’.

 

Astra snorts. ‘Why would he listen?’

 

‘Because he cares about Kara. Because he knows what it’s like to lose everything. Because he doesn’t want her to suffer, and knows that she will if you do’. Alex hesitates, and then adds, ‘because he’s a Green Martian. The last’.

 

She’s not really surprised when Astra’s eyes go wide, when she makes a soft sound that does something strange to her chest. ‘He… I thought they all perished. They…’ she makes that soft sound again, and Alex realises with a jolt that it’s a chuckle. Breathless and quiet and a little awed, and Astra’s eyes are gleaming. ‘He… that is…’ she shakes her head, and chuckles again. ‘A relief would be an understatement’.

 

Alex swallows past the rock in her throat. ‘Yeah. So he’ll listen’.

 

Astra is quiet for a moment. Her teeth dig into her lower lip, a strange, uncharacteristic display of what Alex recognises as anxiety, and she says quietly, ‘I would like… I would like to see Kara. When she comes out. She… to make sure that she’s… alright’.

 

‘She’d love to see you’, Alex says, without hesitation or second thought, because she knows it’s true. Remembers the spring in Kara’s step, after they exchanged Astra for Non. How her eyes gleamed, and how her smile, somehow, impossibly, seemed brighter. ‘She might even give you a hug’.

 

Astra blinks. ‘A hug’.

 

‘… yeah. You know… what a hug is, right?’

 

‘Yes’, Astra says, but she sounds more distracted then offended, ‘of course. I just…’ her brow furrows. ‘It’s been… a while’.

 

A while… ? _Oh._ A hug. It’s been a while since she’s had a hug. From Kara? In general? Alex is inclined to think the later.

 

She tries to push down the sudden desire to change that, right now.

 

Instead, she slides her hand down Astra’s arm, and holds her hand. Astra starts like Alex has struck her, and stares at with a faintly bug eyed look for a moment. Alex stares back levelly.

 

Astra blinks, and looks down. Alex nods, more to herself than Astra, and says, ‘we should get going then’.

 

Astra nods. She doesn’t move. Alex hesitates, wondering if she should push, when Astra opens her mouth, and says, ‘I don’t hate her for betraying me’.

 

It takes Alex a moment to work out what Astra is talking about. This conversation has taken so many twists and turns that she’s beginning to wonder if it isn’t some wild dream she’s having after passing out from exhaustion. ‘Oh’, she murmurs finally, ‘but I thought… she sent you to Fort Rozz. You told Kara you hate her because of that’.

 

‘No’, Astra says, and her voice is so quiet that Alex has to lean closer to hear her, ‘I didn’t’.

 

‘But you do hate her’.

 

‘Yes’.

 

‘Why?’

 

Astra’s lips press into a thin line. A tremor seems to run along her jaw, and Alex realises with a jolt that she’s making the same face Kara makes when she’s trying not to cry. ‘Because she… she died’.

 

Oh.

 

‘She _left_ me’. Astra’s eyes are very bright again, and Alex realises she has absolutely no idea what she’s going to do if the woman starts crying. It’s a strange thing, to realise it’s a very serious possibility, when seconds ago Astra was talking about weakness and feelings and even earlier Alex had half expected her to snap her neck.

 

Maybe the whole talk about therapy did more than she realised.

 

Not therapy. PTSD. She hasn’t gotten to the therapy yet.

 

She wonders what a therapist would say about deciding to hate your sister for dying.

 

‘You miss her’.

 

Astra’s mouth twists, and it’s not a smile this time. She bows her head, and a shudder seems to run through her.

 

‘It’s okay to miss her, Astra’.

 

Astra’s brow pinches. She takes a shuddering breath, and whispers, ‘I hope you don’t lose Kara’.

 

Alex jolts, and Astra grips her hand, like an apology. Alex’s heart races, and she wonders for a wild moment what might happen to her if she did lose Kara. Whether she’d end up like Astra.

 

No. She’s not going to lose Kara. Because she’s going to listen to Astra, and save her, and then she’s going to make damn sure that Astra stops Myriad and gets back into Kara’s life because it’ll make Kara happy and hopefully it’ll stop Astra from looking so sad behind her masks, because Alex doesn’t think she can stand to see that again.

 

She reaches out, and touches Astra’s chin, urging her to look up. Astra does, and her eyes are shining so brightly Alex can see that they hold stars. ‘I’m not going to lose Kara’, she says, firm and strong, ‘and neither are you. Because together, we’re going to save her’.

 

Astra blinks. A tear dislodges and rolls down her cheek to touch the tip of Alex’s finger, and it’s warm. Alex bites her lip. ‘We’re going to save Kara, alright?’

 

Astra takes a deep breath, and nods. She blinks, dislodges a few more tears, and chuckles, a wry, harsher thing than before. ‘It occurred to me’, she says, her voice tight and choked, ‘that we’re in a rather interesting position. If you’re her sister, and I’m her aunt, what does that make us?’

 

Alex opens her mouth, and then closes it again. She remembers Kara’s smile when she took her aunt’s words, and made it her own.

 

_Bound by blood._

 

_Bound by love._

 

‘Well’, she says softly, ‘if you stopped Myriad, you’d be family’.

 

Astra lips part, and she stares. ‘Family’, she says, drawing out the word like it tastes foreign to her, ‘how so?’

 

‘You told Kara that we’re all bound by blood’. Alex tilts her head. ‘You and I aren’t related, but you love Kara, and I love Kara. We’re bound’.

 

Astra makes a strange sound. Her fingers tremble in Alex’s hand. ‘By what?’

 

‘Love’.

 

Astra makes a choked, breathless sound. ‘Love. You don’t love me’.

 

‘I could’.

 

They stare at each other. Alex decides it’s a mercy that her underlying worry about Kara makes it impossible for her to be embarrassed, and it keeps the heat from her cheeks.

 

‘If I stopped Myriad’.

 

‘If you stopped Myriad’.

 

Astra’s brow furrows. ‘I… have spent over a decade working on Myriad. I have to save this world’.

 

‘There’s always another way’.

 

Astra flinches. Her fingers tighten around Alex’s hand, almost as a twitch, and her mouth pinches. Alex wonders if she’s going to pull away, or say something sharp, but all she says is, ‘Alura used to say that’.

 

‘And she was right’.

 

‘If it is a… coping mechanism’, Astra says slowly, her nose crinkling in distaste, ‘who says I will be able to give it up easily?’

 

’No one said it would be easy. But, you won’t be alone’.

 

‘I… suppose I won’t’.

 

‘Besides, we can always talk about this after we’ve saved Kara’.

 

Worry flickers in Astra’s eyes, but she nods. ‘We can’.

 

‘Good. Let’s get going then’. She gives Astra’s hand a squeeze, and lets go. ‘I’m going to call J’onn ahead. Then we’ll go’.

 

There’s no answer, and Alex glances over her shoulder. Astra is standing as still as ever, her head slightly tilted, watching her closely. Again, it’s hard to tell what she’s thinking, but her eyes are still bright and there’s tears on her cheeks, and Alex lowers her phone. ‘How long has it been since you’ve been hugged?’

 

Astra starts. ‘What?’

 

‘You. Being hugged. When was the last time?’

 

‘I…’ her throat tightens as she swallows. ‘The last time was when I met up with Kara. The day Alura sent me to Fort Rozz’.

 

Alex nods. She looks down at her phone, sends a quick message to J’onn, and then drops it onto her chair. She turns back to face Astra, who is again giving her that puzzled look, and says, ‘I would like to give you a hug’.

 

Astra stares. She opens her mouth, shuts it again, and her jaw clenches. She’s holding herself very rigidly, but she nods.

 

Alex moves forward quickly, before she can talk herself out of what might be one of the strangest, rashest things she’s ever done, and wraps her arms around the woman. Her hands settle on her back, and she props her chin on her shoulder, waiting for Astra to do something. For a moment, Astra just stands there rigidly, as tense and unyielding as an iron bar, and Alex can hear the shallow pace of her breathing against her ear.

 

Just when she thinks she should let go, Astra shifts, and her hands come up to settle on her back. She takes a deep breath, and as she lets it out, she sags so abruptly into Alex’s arms that she half wonders if she’ll have to hold her up. Her head bows to touch her shoulder, and Alex tightens her embrace, closing her eyes as Astra’s fingers twist in her shirt.

 

Astra smells like rain and pine needles, like this world she’s trying so desperately to save, and Alex breathes, ‘it’s going to be okay’.

 

Astra nods against her shoulder, her grip tightening until it’s almost painful, and Alex closes her eyes, and forces herself to believe it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this at 2am in one go and its been sitting on my laptop for about a week so im just posting it idk if ill do anything more to it but anyway, astra needed a hug and someone had to tell her about her trauma cause the show sure wasn't going to address it
> 
> im alwasy a bit wary of making one of them seem like the other's therapist, but it was kinda necessary
> 
> anyway, enjoy!


End file.
